went in for 'the Gipsy business,' as he always called it; and of course the
three ladies were immensely excited, and implored me to 'do' their hands.
I told them it was all nonsense, I said I had forgotten all I once knew, I
made various excuses; and the matter dropped. It was quite true that I
had given up reading hands. I avoided anything that might remind me of
what was in my own hands. And so, next morning, it was a great bore to
me when, soon after the train started, Mrs. Elbourn said it would be 'too
cruel' of me if I refused to do their hands now. Her daughter and Mrs.
Brett also said it would be 'brutal'; and they were all taking off their
gloves, and--well, of course I had to give in.

"I went to work methodically on Mrs. Elbourn's hands, in the usual
way, you know, first sketching the character from the backs of them;
and there was the usual hush, broken by the usual little noises--
grunts of assent from the husband, cooings of recognition from the
daughter. Presently I asked to see the palms, and from them I filled in
the details of Mrs. Elbourn's character before going on to the events in
her life. But while I talked I was calculating how old Mrs. Elbourn might
be. In my first glance at her palms I had seen that she could not have
been less than twenty-five when she married. The daughter was
seventeen. Suppose the daughter had been born a year later--how old
would the mother be? Forty-three, yes. Not less than that, poor woman!"

Laider looked at me.

"Why 'poor woman!' you wonder? Well, in that first glance I had
seen other things than her marriage-line. I had seen a very complete
break in the lines of life and of fate. I had seen violent death there. At
what age? Not later, not possibly LATER, than forty-three. While I
talked to her about the things that had happened in her girlhood, the back